DTE Energy NYSE: DTE executives said the company got off to a “strong start” in 2026, pointing to first-quarter operating earnings of $1.95 per share, continued progress on electric reliability and an expanding pipeline of large-load data center agreements that management said could provide incremental upside to its long-term plan.
First-quarter results and segment drivers
Executive Vice President and CFO David Ruud reported first-quarter 2026 operating earnings of $407 million, or $1.95 per share. Ruud said the result “positions us well to achieve the high end of our guidance range in 2026.”
In the utility businesses, Ruud said:
- DTE Electric posted operating earnings of $218 million, up $71 million from the first quarter of 2025, driven primarily by “timing of taxes, rate implementation, and colder weather,” partly offset by higher rate base and O&M costs.
- DTE Gas delivered operating earnings of $210 million, up $4 million year over year, driven by colder weather and IRM revenue, partly offset by higher rate base costs.
- DTE Vantage earned $48 million, up $9 million, driven by higher customer energy solutions and steel-related earnings, partly offset by lower renewable earnings.
Energy trading earnings were $59 million lower than the first quarter of 2025, which Ruud attributed primarily to “expected timing in the first quarter in the power portfolio.” He said the company remains “highly confident” it will achieve the high end of full-year guidance for trading as the timing reverses through contracted and hedged positions.
Corporate and other results were unfavorable by $54 million, which Ruud said was primarily due to “the timing of taxes of $43 million and higher interest expense.”
Reliability progress and storm response
President and CEO Joi Harris said DTE’s performance in major first-quarter storm events highlighted improvements in restoration and grid resilience. She said the company restored 100% of impacted customers within 48 hours during a January weather event and restored service to over 99% of customers within 48 hours during a more significant March storm.
Harris also cited broader reliability progress. She said that from 2023 to 2025, the company achieved a 90% improvement in outage duration and recorded its “best all-weather SAIDI performance in nearly 20 years,” placing DTE in the “top quartile of utilities nationwide.” She said DTE restored 99.9% of impacted customers within 48 hours last year.
Discussing the March storm, Harris said wind gusts exceeded 70 miles per hour and about 300,000 customers were impacted, with “nearly all customers” restored within 48 hours. In response to a question about cost, Harris said the storms were “not more expensive than prior years,” and contrasted the event with an earlier, “less severe” storm that affected more than 750,000 customers and required significantly longer restoration.
Data centers: Oracle under construction, Google contract filed
Harris said DTE continues to make progress on data center development. She said the 1.4 gigawatt Oracle data center included in the company’s plan has been approved and construction is underway, with load ramping over the next several years.
Harris also said DTE has executed an agreement with Google to serve a 1 gigawatt data center. She described the Google project as “incremental upside” to the current long-term plan and said the contract has been submitted to the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) for approval.
On the call, Harris said she expects an MPSC order on the Google contract in the September timeframe, “by September 10th,” based on what the contract specifies. She added that the commission indicated it will “read the order,” meaning there will not be a proposal for decision (PFD), which she characterized as a positive signal for staying on track for September approval.
Harris said Google’s load is expected to be fully ramped by the end of 2028. She said meeting Google’s capacity needs “could drive roughly $5 billion of incremental generation and storage investment through 2032,” supported by a mix of renewable generation, energy storage, demand response, and longer-term generation to be identified through DTE’s integrated resource planning (IRP) process.
Harris emphasized customer protections embedded in the Google structure, including a “20-year power supply agreement with minimum monthly charges” and a separate clean capacity acceleration agreement that covers renewable and storage investments, along with termination provisions and credit and collateral requirements.
Beyond Oracle and Google, Harris said DTE is in “advanced discussions” that could represent roughly 2 gigawatts of incremental load, with additional projects in its pipeline that could add another 3-4 gigawatts over time.
Customer affordability, rate case strategy, and IRP timeline
Harris repeatedly linked large-load growth to affordability, saying data centers help spread fixed system costs over a broader base. She said that once fully ramped, Oracle is expected to drive about $300 million of annual benefits to existing customers, while the Google data center is expected to generate roughly $1.7 billion of benefits over the life of the contract.
She also discussed DTE’s recent electric rate case filing, which she said is predominantly driven by the company’s Distribution Infrastructure Investment Plan focused on reliability and aligned with recommendations from a 2024 electric distribution audit. Harris said DTE is requesting nearly $800 million of distribution investment to be incorporated into the IRM by 2030.
Harris described a proposed mechanism intended to capture “any excess margin from the Oracle load ramp above what we have included in our filing.” If Oracle’s load ramps online by the end of 2027 and DTE receives other required regulatory approvals, she said the company would “refrain from filing another rate request until at least 2028.” In Q&A, Harris said layering the Google contract on top of that mechanism “could very well give us the opportunity to push out cases even further.”
Asked about precedents, Harris said DTE did something similar during the COVID years when increased residential load allowed the company to pass savings back to customers.
On regulatory assumptions, Harris said DTE requested a 10.25% ROE and typically includes a 51% equity layer in its filings, while emphasizing it expects a constructive outcome.
Looking longer term, Harris said the company’s IRP filing is expected in the third quarter of 2026 and will provide visibility into how DTE plans to serve growing demand, including data center load.
Capital plan funding, equity issuance, and RNG tax credit outlook
Ruud said DTE continues to target annual equity issuances of $500 million to $600 million from 2026 through 2028, with similar levels through 2030, as it supports its capital investment plan. He said the company plans to issue up to $100 million internally and established an equity ATM program, though no shares were issued under the ATM during the first quarter. Ruud said DTE has priced over $350 million of equity through forward sale agreements to be settled later this year, or about two-thirds of its full-year target.
On potential financing of incremental capital tied to Google, Ruud said the additional investment would be “partially funded with equity,” with the company thinking about “40% equity on average,” depending on cash flow timing, and that it would also use converts and hybrids to support balance sheet metrics.
Both Harris and Ruud reiterated confidence in DTE’s long-term targets, including 6% to 8% operating EPS growth through 2030, with management expressing a bias toward the upper end of guidance. Ruud said RNG tax credits provide “confidence that we can deliver at the higher end” of the range. In Q&A, he said DTE’s 2026 RNG forecast assumes $50 million to $60 million, which he described as conservative while the DOE and Treasury work through related rules.
About DTE Energy NYSE: DTE
DTE Energy is an integrated energy company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, that combines regulated utility operations with non-utility energy businesses. Its regulated subsidiaries operate electric and natural gas utility services that deliver generation, transmission and distribution to residential, commercial and industrial customers. The company's utility segment focuses on maintaining and upgrading energy delivery infrastructure, ensuring reliable service and meeting regulatory requirements in its service territory.
Beyond its regulated utilities, DTE Energy operates non-utility businesses that develop, own and operate power generation and energy-related projects.
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